Businessman began company amid oil boom in Bartlesville
Centennial countdown: Frank Phillips
Businessman began company amid oil boom

By Brandy McDonnell

Published: April 1, 2007

More than 50 years after his death, Frank Phillips' name can be found all over Bartlesville, from the local airfield to a highway to the city's main boulevard.

The ranch getaway, neo-classical mansion and oil company he built remain vibrant and sound.

"He left quite a great legacy, and that legacy's going to be around forever,” said Jim Goss, director and curator of the Frank Phillips Home.

Phillips was born Nov. 28, 1873, in Scotia, Neb., to Lewis and Lucinda "Josie” Phillips. He was the third of their 10 children and the oldest boy.

The couple moved to the Nebraska homestead from Iowa shortly before he was born, according to the book "Oil Man: The Story of Frank Phillips and the Birth of Phillips Petroleum” by Tulsa author Michael Wallis.

The year after his birth, a plague of grasshoppers devoured their land, and the family returned to Iowa. They settled on a farm near Creston.

Phillips was educated in a one-room schoolhouse and dreamed of escaping the farm. He admired the snazzy striped pants the local barbers wore and decided to pursue that profession.

At 14, he sought an apprenticeship and learned the trade. In 1890, Phillips, then 17, traveled west by train. He worked as a barber in Colorado mining towns and at Utah railroad construction sites.

He returned to Creston five years later. He owned three barbershops there by the time he was 24.

Phillips courted Jane Gibson, the daughter of banker John Gibson, and married her on Feb. 18, 1897. John Gibson allowed the union on the condition that Phillips quit barbering and enter banking.

The couple's son, John, was born Dec. 9, 1898. In 1919, they took in a pair of orphaned sisters, Mary Francis and Sara Jane, and raised them as foster daughters.

Phillips' business acumen served him well in banking. One of his early successes involved selling bonds to support the 1900 World's Fair in Chicago.

"He was crafty. He was a good salesman,” Wallis said in a telephone interview. "He was very entrepreneurial and very much on the go ... always wanting to improve.”

In 1903, Phillips heard about oil strikes in Bartlesville from a preacher returning from mission work in Indian Territory. He and brother L.E. Phillips traveled to the boomtown, and they started a bank in 1904.

The brothers also started drilling oil wells. The first three were dry. They had money to drill just one more.

"The next one was a gusher,” Goss said. "The next 80 after that one were gushers.”

Phillips sent for his wife and son, but she refused to come to the untamed oil town until he built her a house, Goss said. He built a small home in 1906, and two years later, replaced it with a Greek revival-style mansion. The Frank Phillips Home today is a historical site and museum.

In 1917, Phillips and his brother consolidated their various oil ventures and founded Phillips Petroleum Co. Phillips became chief executive officer, according to his biography from Woolaroc Museum and Wildlife Preserve.

In the Osage Hills outside Bartlesville, Phillips built a ranch retreat in 1925. He named it Woolaroc for the woods, lakes and rocks in the scenic area.

"He wanted to play cowboy. All of that was fascinating to him — the cowboys, the Indians, the outlaws,” Woolaroc chief executive officer Bob Fraser said. "His vision from the very first was to preserve the history of the Old West.”

The charismatic Phillips used the ranch as a gathering place for his diverse friends, from Osage Indians and sheriff's deputies to oilmen and horse thieves.

"In their lodge home out here, they entertained over 200,000 people. They were businessmen, they were Hollywood stars, they were high-ranking people in the Catholic Church,” Fraser said. "There were a lot of good deals done in the lodge. He knew if he could get someone to his ranch, he could do the deal.”

Phillips started the museum as a hangar for the airplane he sponsored in the Dole Pineapple Race from California to Hawaii. He added to it his collections of artwork, Navajo rugs and Colt firearms.

"Frank was a classic risk-taker. These (oilmen) were individuals who weren't afraid to roll the dice both figuratively and literally. They weren't afraid to take chances. I think that's what set them apart.” Wallis said. "They became lords of the prairie.”

During the Depression, Phillips remodeled his mansion and later expanded his company offices, Goss said. It created confidence that kept people investing in his company so he could keep paying his employees.

A savvy and honest businessman, Phillips was known for treating his employees well. For many years, he prided himself on knowing all their names, from the vice presidents to the roustabouts. They called him Uncle Frank and his wife Aunt Jane, Wallis said.

Phillips was not a saint, Wallis said. He had a rocky relationship with his son and kept a mistress, Fern Butler, who became head of the company's New York office, for many years.

But he was a generous philanthropist, paying off the mortgages of several local churches and ensuring every schoolchild got fruit, candy and a silver dollar at Christmas.

"J.P. Morgan gave away dimes; he gave away silver dollars,” Goss said. "A lot of people in Bartlesville still have their silver dollars from Uncle Frank.”

Phillips Petroleum merged with Conoco in 2002 but maintains offices in Bartlesville. ConocoPhillips is the country's third-largest energy company.

"Today, more than a century after Frank Phillips drilled his first well, the company he founded has matured into one of the world's largest and most capable energy producers. If he were here today, I believe Frank would be very proud of what his company has achieved and eager to roll up his sleeves and get to work on the future,” Jim Mulva, chairman and chief executive officer of ConocoPhillips, said in a statement.

Phillips died Aug. 23, 1950, two years after his wife's death. He was 76. They are interred in a mausoleum at Woolaroc.

Contributing: News researcher Robin Kickingbird

"A lot of people in Bartlesville still have their silver dollars from Uncle Frank.”

Jim Goss